Page 24 of Cast in Shadow (Drenched in Darkness #1)

24

Tension filled the space between the five of us like noxious smoke. Emerson was at my side, staring at Nguyen while the other man glared at me.

“Convenient timing.” The hint of a snarl rode Nguyen’s words, and his eyes glittered with trouble.

If he shifted in here, now, it would be a shit show. Wards meant to block eavesdropping were useless against the spectacle an eight-hundred-pound grizzly would create.

“Like I said, I asked him to come,” I said.

“How did he know when to show up?” Again, there was that flicker of mischief in Nguyen’s eyes, and not the fun kind.

“We share a bond.” Emerson tapped the side of his head. “All she has to do is call for me, and I’ll be here.”

“Really?” Shay asked hesitantly. Curiosity glittered in her hazel eyes, temporarily overshadowing her initial anxiety. “He can read your thoughts?”

A little of the rigidness left Emerson’s big frame when he replied in a surprisingly gentle voice, “Only when she lets me. ”

Why did that bit of softness toward my daughter hit me like a hard thump to the chest?

Dennis had been watching in silence, then it was like a light bulb went off in his head. “Not all demons can get into a person’s head, right?”

Emerson nodded. “Correct. It’s an ability typically reserved for primordial beings. Gods and demons,” he said, casting me a pointed glance.

“But you can.” Dennis paused for a beat, looking down at the polished black oak table. “And the demon that latched onto Senna back in the day tried to get inside her head when she reached out to the veil. I wonder if there’s a way to use that.” He was basically talking to himself at that point, which was a good thing, because Emerson’s head snapped around and he pinned me with a dangerous look.

“You didn’t tell me that part.”

“It wasn’t relevant.” And I wasn’t ready to go through that nightmare with him just yet. It was hard enough telling my team about it, and I’d only given them the highlights.

“Isn’t it though?” Dennis cut in. “If Megan gathers enough power to touch the veil, which would give her access to even more power, won’t she already be strong enough to fight off an intrusion like that?”

I used the opportunity to get some distance from Emerson, moving in beside Dennis and taking a seat. “Not necessarily. I already had experience keeping Emerson out of my head. Those barriers were the only reason I was able to withstand the attack.”

“Why would she need to keep you out?” Nguyen asked, eyeing Emerson.

I opened my mouth to respond, but he beat me to it. “Because I frightened her. Enough so that she faked her death to hide from me and blocked me so I couldn’t find her.” The regret painting his dark features, and the weight of his gaze on me, took all those old feelings that had been bubbling back up and gave them a good stir.

Nguyen leaned back, lifting his chin as he crossed his arms over his chest. “So, you’re the reason she won’t let anyone in. And here I thought she just needed time.”

No. Nope.

“We are not doing this.” I stood, coming around to stand between the two men. “This mission isn’t about any of us or the choices we’ve made in our personal lives. It is about stopping Megan Navali before she draws something into this world that we can’t stop.”

“Isn’t that why he’s here?” Nguyen asked, sucking air through his teeth. “To kill it if we fail.”

Emerson could have mirrored his defensive stance with the crossed arms and narrowed eyes, but he didn’t. Everything about him remained stoic, as if Nguyen’s posturing didn’t affect him in the slightest. “It’s not that simple. A demon powerful enough to infiltrate someone’s mind has the potential to rain destruction on a massive scale.”

“Can you?” Shay asked.

“Kill it?”

“Rain destruction?”

He eyed the chair next to her, then strolled over and sank down into it like they were old friends. “Yes.”

Intrigue danced in her expression. “Why don’t you?”

“Because I took an oath a long time ago to protect this realm from our kind. Every member of the Brethren did. For as cruel as the human world can be, it’s still filled with a kind of goodness that doesn’t exist in my realm.”

She studied him for a few more seconds before shifting her attention to me. “He’s not exaggerating, is he?”

“No, and my experience there was a blip compared to his. ”

“How long is a blip?” Nguyen asked.

“Too long,” Emerson said darkly.

I shook my head. “Just long enough to figure out how to get home. But none of this is helping us solve the Navali problem.”

“Have Bravo and Golf reported back yet?” Nguyen asked.

All eyes moved to Dennis, who looked like a deer caught in the headlights. “We’re in the middle of a classified meeting in a bar that is blocks from my laptop. How am I supposed to know?”

“I take it you located her,” Emerson said, sitting forward and resting his elbows on his knees.

Dennis was the one to respond. “Facial recognition put her in Andreno Heights early this morning.”

“Facial recognition?” He looked impressed and maybe a little amused. “Isn’t that a dangerous thing for someone your age?”

Was he teasing me?

If so, I refused to take the bait. “Things are changing fast. The technology exists. We can try to fight it and stay trapped in the past, or we can embrace our current reality and figure out how to use it to our advantage. I don’t know about you, but I’ll take every edge I can get.”

Some of his amusement drained away, but the admiration lingered. Maybe he was finally figuring out that I could still be me and, at the same time, not be the same woman he knew all those years ago. Time and experience had a way of peeling back a person’s assumptions about the world and about themselves. I was better for having that knowledge, but the lessons I’d learned—and continued to learn—left indelible marks.

And one of those lessons was when to stop chasing my prey.

“We need to set a trap,” I said, looking first at Emerson, then at the others. “I want to bring Megan to us.”

“Traps only work with the right kind of bait,” Nguyen said .

“She wants magic and power. Lucky for us, I know someone who has exactly what she’s looking for.”

Emerson pinned me with a knowing look, his lips going flat. “No.”

“I’m the obvious choice.”

He shook his head. “Absolutely not.”

“Don’t go all chivalrous on me now. It hasn’t even been a full day since you brought me to my knees testing my abilities. And like you said, power is a magnet.”

“I don’t like this idea either,” Shay said quietly. Her hands fisted the hem of her hoodie, and she curled her legs beneath her, like she was trying to make herself small.

The last thing I wanted to do was cause her more trauma, but the longer we waited to take Megan down, the riskier the whole situation would become.

I held up my hands in question. “Who has a better plan? I’m open to alternatives.”

“We could keep an eye on her and wait until she’s vulnerable,” Dennis offered.

“That’s one idea.” I shifted my attention to Nguyen.

He tipped his face to the ceiling and blew out an irritated breath. “Senna’s right. Watching and waiting leaves us scrambling to confront Megan on her terms. If we want to control the situation, the location, all of it, we need to bring her to us.”

I cast him a grateful look. “Does anyone disagree?”

Shay and Dennis shook their heads, but Emerson just sat there with a look in his eyes I couldn’t read.

“My issue isn’t the trap,” he finally said. “It’s the choice of bait.”

Dragging my hands down my face, I searched for patience deep within me. I was the logical choice. There wasn’t a witch on the continent more powerful, at least not that I knew of. And even if there was, it wouldn’t be right to pull an unsuspecting soul into this fight.

“Then give me a better option.” Yeah, I heard the snap in my voice, but I didn’t care. We both knew I was right.

I smoothed my expression and perched myself on the arm of the empty club chair beside me while I waited for a response.

“This is dangerous,” Emerson whispered in my mind.

Oh, there was no question about that. “I will not be using anyone else on my team as bait, and we’re not going to capture another witch for the sole purpose of making her a sacrificial lamb.”

“What about you?” Nguyen asked, throwing a sharp look at Emerson.

He looked at the other man for a few seconds. “If I thought there was a chance the witch would believe I was a viable target, I would do it in a heartbeat.”

“Why wouldn’t she go for you?” Dennis asked.

“He’s too powerful. She’s getting bold, but she’ll still be looking for a fight she thinks she can win,” I explained. “Plus, he wears his power on his sleeve. He can’t help it. Mine is a little more nuanced.” A fact that had come in handy more than once.

Shay shifted in her seat. “How?”

This was another one of those things I would much rather keep to myself, but hey, apparently today was all about sharing. “It’s two-fold. The first part is like dimming a bulb. I can bury my power. It’s still there beneath the surface, but I can turn down how much shines through. The other part is that I can call on more power if things get really dicey, which gives me an advantage over most beings in this realm.”

Emerson’s eyes went wide. “You can call the ribbon?”

“Sometimes. When it’s close.” I gave him a half-shrug. “And sometimes it lends a hand even when I don’t reach for it. ”

“This morning in the parking lot.” He shook his head with understanding. “It came to your defense, didn’t it?”

“Essentially, even though I was trying like hell to keep a leash on my power so it wouldn’t.”

That seemed to soothe Nguyen, a little, but Emerson’s head tipped slightly to one side. He studied me in silence.

Well, outward silence.

“When I incapacitated you in the clearing that first night, could you have broken free?”

I wasn’t about to answer that question because the answer was no. My magic, for the most part, still required physical contact. It was only when it became too overwhelming to control that I could create the kind of pulse that I had in the parking lot that morning.

I held up a hand to stop anyone else from talking, and to prevent Emerson from saying anything else in my head. “The point is, Navali will see only as much of my power as I want her to see. That gives us the advantage.”

After countless drinks and several hours of heated debate, we managed to work out a plan. None of us liked it. It wasn’t safe. But it was the best shot we had.